“The last two decades have seen major advances in the legal protection of the human rights of women around the world. A series of international and national court cases has developed an important body of jurisprudence that has been relied on by courts and advocates in many countries to support women’s claims for equality and the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Growing out of a series of judicial colloquia organized by the Commonwealth Secretariat, this compilation brings together a selection of over fifty significant cases from international and national courts. The cases are grouped by theme and presented in full text or edited format. Together they highlight the way in which courts have used international human rights norms and national constitutional standards to contribute to women’s equality. A detailed introduction provides a summary of the significance of the cases and references further material available on women’s human rights.

Cases decided under United Nations human rights treaties, the European and American Conventions on Human Rights and other international instruments, as well as cases decided by national courts in Asia, Africa, Europe, Australasia, and North America are all included. The compilation will be of interest to all those with an interest in the advancement of the human rights of women especially equality advocates, lawyers and judges, scholars and students.”

“This book is an examination of an important aspect of constitutional law: the creation and amendment of constitutions, which in addition to being of interest for practical reasons, brings us close to some of the most fundamental theoretical questions in law. It brings together a wealth of fascinating contributions to the study of comparative constitutional law, covering the constitutions of Commonwealth Africa, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Nigeria, Rwanda and Burundi, the United

Kingdom, and the United States of America.

The contributions are of particular significance to the status of human rights and their legal recognition, as well as to theoretical comparative public law scholarship. The volume suggests in its final comparison of constitutional norms that perhaps constitutional amendments should be made difficult once a constitution has settled into its foundations.”

About: Describing the constitutional rights of women in twelve countries, the contributors to this collection draw on a wide range of legal cases covering issues such as abortion, sexual harassment, employment discrimination, sexual abuse, pornography, family relationships, access to health and social assistance benefits, and electoral rights, among others. Their analysis reveals how essentially male judges decide cases that are mainly about women’s equality claims. The volume’s comparative perspective provides readers with the basis for independent pursuits of constitutional equality for women

“This comprehensive in-depth assessment of current contemporary discrimination law in England and Wales provides a critical overview of the subject along with analysis of the law. Discrimination Law: Theory and Context:
Addresses the subject from a human rights and EU law perspective
Analyses how EU and domestic discrimination law has been influenced by constitutional and human rights standards
Explores the different theories and social debates surrounding the role of discrimination law
Utilises the popular text and materials approach to provide an accessible and stimulating collection of statutes, cases, extracts from academic books, articles, policy papers and government publications (
Includes international material, as well as comparisons with other jurisdictions such as the US, Canada, South Africa and Australia
Provides detailed discussion of recent developments in disability and age discrimination including the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006
Contains all other relevant legislation such as the Civil Partnership Act 2004
Includes analysis of recent cases such as the decision of the House of Lords in ex parte Carson (2005), Shabina Begum (2006); The US Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v Texason sexual orientation and the Canadian Supreme Court decision in Multani v Commissionon religion
Gives an analysis of the Discrimination Law Review 2007 which offers recommendations about future law reform”

“The European Union has committed itself to combating racism as a general objective of law and policy. EU legislation requires Member States to introduce laws prohibiting racial discrimination in many aspects of everyday life, including employment, education, healthcare, and housing. Alongside legislation requiring action at national level, the EU institutions have also made periodic commitments to ‘mainstream’ racial equality: taking anti-racism objectives into account within all areas of EU law and policy.

This book analyzes the extent to which the objectives of combating racism and promoting ethnic equality have been effectively mainstreamed throughout a wide range of EU policy fields. It begins by considering what combating racism means in the contemporary context of the enlarged EU. Bell explores what mainstreaming ethnic equality objectives entails, and whether the priorities and instruments differ from those adopted in the earlier mainstreaming of gender equality, or those used on other discrimination grounds. The second part of the book examines the extent to which EU law and policy objectives have, in practice, been integrated, exploring the effects in the key areas of employment, social inclusion (including education, health and housing), immigration, and criminal law.”

The 1999 Treaty of Amsterdam expanded significantly the legal competence of the European Union for combatting discrimination. Traditionally, EU law has concentrated on discrimination between women and men and discrimination on the grounds of EU nationality. However, Article 13 EC created a new legal space for the Union to regulate discrimination on the ground of racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age, or sexual orientation. This book aims to improve our understanding of the evolution of European Union law in the field. To this end, it considers the development of EU law and policy in respect of two specific grounds of discrimination — race and sexual orientation. It provides an account of the debate within the institutions and Member States, analysis of relevant case law from the Court of Justice, and coverage of the anti-discrimination directives adopted in 2001. The book further considers the relationship between national and European anti-discrimination law. A survey of national anti-discrimination statutes is presented in order to identify the variety of legal traditions that exist in this field. The diversity of these legal cultures impacts significantly upon the scope for and nature of EU anti-discrimination legislation. The author concludes by reviewing the principle factors that have influenced the evolution of EU anti-discrimination law and applying this to an analysis of the prospects for future development

This casebook, the result of the collaborative efforts of a panel of experts from various EU Member States, is the latest in the Ius Commune Casebook series developed at the Universities of Maastricht and Leuven. The book provides a comprehensive and skilfully designed resource for students, practitioners, researchers, public officials, NGOs, consumer organisations and the judiciary. In common with earlier books in the series, this casebook presents cases and other materials (legislative materials, international and European materials, excerpts from books or articles). As non-discrimination law is a comparatively new subject, the chapters search for and develop the concepts of discrimination law on the basis of a wide variety of young and often still emerging case law and legislation. The result is a comprehensive textbook with materials from a wide variety of EU Member States. The book is entirely in English (i.e. materials are translated where not available in English). At the end of each chapter a comparative overview ties the material together, with emphasis, where appropriate, on existing or emerging general principles in the legal systems within Europe.
The book illustrates the distinct relationship between international, European and national legislation in the field of non-discrimination law. It covers the grounds of discrimination addressed in the Racial Equality and Employment Equality Directives, as well as non-discrimination law relating to gender. In so doing, it covers the law of a large number of EU Member States, alongside some international comparisons.
The Ius Commune Casebook on Non-Discrimination Law
– provides practitioners with ready access to primary and secondary legal material needed to assist them in crafting test case strategies.
– provides the judiciary with the tools needed to respond sensitively to such cases.
– provides material for teaching non-discrimination law to law and other students.
– provides a basis for ongoing research on non-discrimination law.
– provides an up-to-date overview of the implementation of the Directives and of the state of the law.
This Casebook is the result of a project which has been supported by a grant from the European Commission’s Anti-Discrimination Programme.”

“In an increasingly globalized world, the movement of peoples across national borders is posing unprecedented challenges, for the people involved as well as for the places to which they travel and their countries of origin. Citizenship is now a topic in focus around the world but much of that discussion takes place without sufficient attention to the women, men, and children, in and out of families, whose statuses and treatments depend upon how countries view their arrival. As essays in this volume detail, both the practices and theories of citizenship need to be reappraised in light of the array of persons and of twentieth-century commitments to their dignity and equality.

Migrations and Mobilities uniquely situates gender in the context of ongoing, urgent conversations about globalization, citizenship, and the meaning of borders. Following an introductory essay by editors Seyla Benhabib and Judith Resnik that addresses the parameters and implications of gendered migration, the interdisciplinary contributors consider a wide range of issues, from workers’ rights to children’s rights, from theories of the nation-state and federalism to obligations under transnational human rights conventions. Together, the essays in this path-breaking collection force us to consider the pivotal role that gender should play in reconceiving the nature of citizenship in the contemporary, transnational world.

“The second edition of Civil Rights Litigation retains the basic organization and many distinctive features of the first edition, including its broad coverage and diversity of viewpoints. Authors Brooks, Carrasco, and Selmi expose students to many different forms of discrimination, including education, housing, employment, voting, disability, language, police activities, and affirmative action. The books opening chapter offers a historic overview of civil rights litigation and raises several recurring themes in civil rights theory, including race versus class, the identity question, civil rights perspectives, and “”anti-civil rights”” perspectives. Each of the remaining nine chapters opens with an overview of the relevant social environment and applicable laws. As in the first edition, cases are presented with a minimum amount of editing to facilitate sophisticated class discussion or role-playing in which students argue the cases in class.
Principal changes in the second edition include the usual updating of cases and secondary material as well as the restructuring of sections in several chapters. The section on civil rights perspectives in Chapter 1 has been reorganized to reflect recent clarifications in critical theory as well as the development of a new civil rights theory called “”limited separation.”” The cases and materials have been restructured in several sections.

Perhaps the most significant change has been the addition of a new co-author, Professor Michael Selmi, who replaces Judge Gordon Martin. Like Judge Martin, Professor Selmi brings both legal expertise and a different perspective to this unique collaboration.

A teacher’s manual is also available, and 2003 supplement is forthcoming.”

“White Americans, abetted by neo-conservative writers of all hues, generally believe that racial discrimination is a thing of the past and that any racial inequalities that undeniably persist—in wages, family income, access to housing or health care—can be attributed to African Americans’ cultural and individual failures. If the experience of most black Americans says otherwise, an explanation has been sorely lacking—or obscured by the passions the issue provokes. At long last offering a cool, clear, and informed perspective on the subject, this book brings together a team of highly respected sociologists, political scientists, economists, criminologists, and legal scholars to scrutinize the logic and evidence behind the widely held belief in a color-blind society—and to provide an alternative explanation for continued racial inequality in the United States.

While not denying the economic advances of black Americans since the 1960s, Whitewashing Race draws on new and compelling research to demonstrate the persistence of racism and the effects of organized racial advantage across many institutions in American society—including the labor market, the welfare state, the criminal justice system, and schools and universities. Looking beyond the stalled debate over current antidiscrimination policies, the authors also put forth a fresh vision for achieving genuine racial equality of opportunity in a post-affirmative action world.”

About: The book is concerned with the legal framework for protecting and promoting social rights in Europe. Its chapters examine procedural and substantive aspects of the Council of Europe’s European Social Charter and the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as the EU’s so-called “acquis” in the area of social rights. They look at a range of issues, including the strengths and weaknesses of the two systems in terms of promoting and protecting social rights by examining the legal and political enforcement mechanisms as well as at some of the important substantive rights contained within each

New approaches to governance have attracted significant scholarly attention in recent years. Commentators on both sides of the Atlantic have identified, charted and evaluated the rise and spread of forms of governance, forms which seem to differ from previous regulatory and legal paradigms. In Europe, the emergence of the Open Method of Coordination has provided a focal point for new governance studies. In the US, scholarship on issues such as collaborative problem-solving, democratic experimentalism, and problem-solving courts exemplify the interest in similar developments. This book covers diverse policy sectors and subjects, including the environment, education, anti-discrimination, food safety and many others. While some chapters concentrate on the operation of new governance mechanisms in a federal and multilevel context and others look at the relationship between public and private mechanisms and settings, what all the contributors share in common is the pursuit of effective mechanisms for addressing complex social problems, and the challenges they raise for our understanding of law and constitutionalism, and of legal and constitutional values.

“This unique casebook explores the many dimensions of discrimination in the context of sexuality. Strategic considerations of the lawyer as advocate are included, raising issues intended to heighten students’ awareness of the personal complexities that often attend the representation of gay and lesbian clients.

In its treatment of the ubiquitous problem of discrimination based on sexual orientation, the book addresses the variety of federal, state, and international constitutional and statutory regimes in the contexts of education, employment, housing, and the many issues involving the definition of “”family.”” Cases decided by state, foreign, and various federal courts are analyzed against the backdrop of an emerging paradigm of equal protection of the laws that continues to develop in the United States Supreme Court.

The book also considers the intersection of sexuality and AIDS and discrimination against pregnant women.”

“Privatization has caused a large reconfiguration of the relations between the state, the market, and the family in the late twentieth and the early twenty-first centuries, all of which has had a profound effect on the lives of women. This collection of essays address this timely issue by examining eight case studies on the role of law in various arenas such as fiscal and labour market policy, family and immigration law, and laws designed to regulate health services and to prohibit child prostitution.
Starting from the shared assumption that privatization signals a transition from welfare state to neo-liberal state, the authors illustrate the role of law in this process, and its impact on women and on the gender order. In doing so, the contributors lay bare the complex interplay between a globalized political economy, social reproduction and legal regulation, providing an important contribution to feminist political theory and legal theory. Of great relevance to political science and law practitioners scholars and students – especially those interested in the areas of public policy and the state – these essays contribute strongly to debates about gender and will attract a wide feminist audience.”

As individuals travel across borders, societies have become more and more pluralistic. The result of increased migration is the interaction among cultural communities and inevitably clashes between state law and customary law. These cultural conflicts have given rise to a new multicultural jurisprudence. In this volume scholars grapple with the immense challenges judges are currently experiencing everywhere. To what extent can and should courts accommodate litigants’ requests by taking their cultural backgrounds into account?

This collection brings together powerful examples of the cultural defense in many countries in Western Europe, North America, and elsewhere. It shows the ubiquity of this defense, contrary to the mistaken impression that it has been invoked principally in the United States. This book makes the case for undertaking studies of the use of the cultural defense in jurisdictions all over the world where this has not been previously documented.

Many of the chapters concentrate on criminal cases including homicide in the context of honour crimes, provocation based on ‘loss of face’ or witchcraft killings. Some deal with other areas of law such as asylum jurisprudence, family law and housing policy. They show in concrete cases how cultural claims have arisen and how legal systems wrestle with these arguments. It is clear that judges have had considerable difficulty handling many of the cultural claims.

The authors demonstrate persuasively the need to reconsider the proper use of cultural evidence in legal proceedings. Those interested in the ways in which expertise influences the disposition of cases will find this book compelling.

About: “At the intersection of the private sphere of the household and the public sphere of the labour market and paid work lie four essential human realities: pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and childrearing. Do these factors make women unattractive as workers and cause them to be discriminated against in the labour marketplace?
This provocative study sets out to answer this question through an in-depth analysis of theory and actuality in the European Union, providing detailed analysis of EC legal measures and ECJ case law. The author’s very convincing conclusions are bolstered by a revealing comparison with similar legislation and jurisprudence in the United States.
The focus of the study is on the relatively narrow area of sex discrimination, i.e., discrimination because of the biological factors of pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. The author demonstrates that an understanding of this specific and measurable kind of discrimination is the first step toward discrediting the wider category of gender discrimination, which penalizes women as full-time caregivers who cannot be relied upon as workers in the marketplace. She examines numerous instances of unequal treatment on biological grounds, and in the process appraises the legal limits of accommodation of the biological differences between men and women.
Drawing on a wealth of interdisciplinary sources, the primarily legal dimension of this study is securely underpinned by reference to scholarship in the historical, social and economic rationales for discriminatory attitudes toward pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding.”

Human rights have traditionally been understood as protecting individual freedom against intrusion by the State. In this book, Sandra Fredman argues that this understanding requires radical revision. Human rights are based on a far richer view of freedom, which goes beyond being let alone, and instead pays attention to individuals’ ability to exercise their rights.

This view fundamentally shifts the focus of human rights. As well as restraining the State, human rights require the State to act positively to remove barriers and facilitate the exercise of freedom. This in turn breaks down traditional distinctions between civil and political rights and socio-economic rights. Instead, all rights give rise to a range of duties, both negative and positive. However, because positive duties have for so long been regarded as a question of policy or aspiration, little sustained attention has been given to their role in actualising human rights. Drawing on comparative experience from India, South Africa, the European Convention on Human Rights, the European Union, Canada and the UK, this book aims to create a theoretical and applied framework for understanding positive human rights duties.

Part I elaborates the values of freedom, equality, and solidarity underpinning a positive approach to human rights duties, and argues that the dichotomy between democracy and human rights is misplaced. Instead, positive human rights duties should strengthen rather than substitute for democracy, particularly in the face of globalization and privatization. Part II considers justiciability, fashioning a democratic role for the courts based on their potential to stimulate deliberative democracy in the wider environment. Part III applies this framework to key positive duties, particularly substantive equality and positive duties to provide, traditionally associated with the Welfare State or socioeconomic rights.”

About: Fredman provides a thought-provoking introduction to discrimination law. Drawing on a wide variety of philosophical and legal sources, the concepts of equality and anti-discrimination law are introduced and discussed in their social and historical contexts.

Along with globalization, the shift from manufacturing to services as a source of employment, and the spread of information-based systems and technologies have given birth to a new economy which emphasizes flexibility in the labor market and in employment relations. These changes have led to the erosion of the standard (industrial) employment relationship and an increase in precarious work-work which is poorly paid and insecure. Women perform a disproportionate amount of precarious work. This collection of original essays by leading scholars on labor law and women’s work explores the relationship between precarious work and gender, and evaluates the extent to which the growth and spread of precarious work challenges traditional norms of labor law and conventional forms of legal regulation. The book provides a comparative perspective by furnishing case studies from Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Quebec, Sweden, the UK, and the US, as well as the international and supranational context through essays that focus on the IMF, the ILO, and the EU. Common themes and concepts thread throughout the essays, which grapple with the legal and public policy challenges posed by women’s precarious work.

About: The issue of the human rights of people with mental disabilities has been ignored for decades by the international agencies vested with the protection of human rights on a global scale. It is only within the past several years that society has begun to understand that violations of persons’ mental disability rights are violations of human rights. This is the first and only casebook that considers the intersection between international human rights law and comparative mental disability law; it provides a systematic investigation of all of the relevant issues. Topics covered include a comparison of civil and common law systems, an overview of international human rights law, an overview of regional human rights tribunals, an overview of U.S. constitutional mental disability law, mental disability law in an international human rights context, comparative mental disability law (civil and common, scholarly articles and case law), the use of institutional psychiatry as a means of suppressing political dissension, the “universal factors” in this area of law, and the globalization of disability law.

About: Disability Rights in Europe is based on a conference organized jointly by the editors to mark the European Year of Disabled People. It explores the range of legal strategies which have been adopted, both nationally and internationally, to achieve equality for disabled people and facilitate their inclusion into mainstream society. It examines current developments in anti-discrimination law, both within Member States and at EU level. It also assesses the effectiveness and potential of the human rights framework for disabled Europeans. In addition, a number of approaches to the enforcement and promotion of disability rights are considered.

“For civil rights lawyers who toiled through the 1980s in the increasingly barren fields of race and sex discrimination law, the approval of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 by a nearly unanimous U.S. House and Senate and a Republican President seemed almost fantastic. Within five years of the Act’s effective date, however, observers were warning of an unfolding assault on the ADA by federal judges, the media, and other national opinion-makers. A year after the Supreme Court issued a trio of decisions in the summer of 1999 sharply limiting the ADA’s reach, another decision invalidated an entire title of the act as it applied to the states. By this time, disability activists and disability rights lawyers were speaking openly of a backlash against the ADA.

What happened, why did it happen, and what can we learn from the patterns of public, media, and judicial response to the ADA that emerged in the 1990s? In this book, a distinguished group of disability activists, disability rights lawyers, social scientists and humanities scholars grapple with these questions. Taken together, these essays construct and illustrate a new and powerful theoretical model of sociolegal change and retrenchment that can inform both the conceptual and theoretical work of scholars and the day-to-day practice of social justice activists.

Backlash Against the ADA will interest disability rights activists, lawyers, law students and legal scholars interested in social justice and social change movements, and students and scholars in disability studies, political science, media studies, American studies, social movement theory, and legal history”

The concept of reasonable adjustment (alternatively known as reasonable accommodation) is rapidly gaining significance for countries throughout Europe and beyond. Directive 2000/78 required all EU Member States to ensure that, by the end of 2006 at the latest, reasonable accommodation obligations would operate to protect disabled people from unequal treatment in the context of employment. The new United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will require ratifying States to impose such obligations in a broad range of situations. This book provides a detailed and critical analysis of the current and potential role of reasonable adjustment duties in British law. It explores the notion of the anticipatory reasonable adjustment duty – a notion which is, in many respects, distinctively British. It probes the relationship between reasonable adjustment and other concepts, including indirect discrimination and positive discrimination. Drawing particularly on US debates, potential sources of resistance to the duties are exposed and an attempt is made to suggest pre-emptive counter strategies. Attention is also given to issues of legal reform and rationalisation – issues of immense topicality and importance in view of the recent British move towards a single Equality Act. In short, this book examines the current and potential role of reasonable adjustment duties in Britain. It will be of interest to lawyers, policy-makers and students working in the field of disability rights. It will also be of interest to all those concerned with the operation and development of equality law and policy more generally, both in Britain and beyond.

“In the past twenty-five years, no one has been more instrumental than Catharine MacKinnon in making equal rights real for women. As Peter Jennings once put it, more than anyone else in legal studies, she “has made it easier for other women to seek justice.” This collection, the first since MacKinnon’s celebrated Feminism Unmodified appeared in 1987, brings together previously uncollected and unpublished work in the national arena from 1980 to the present, defining her clear, coherent, consistent approach to reframing the law of men on the basis of the lives of women.

By making visible the deep gender bias of existing law, MacKinnon has recast legal debate and action on issues of sex discrimination, sexual abuse, prostitution, pornography, and racism. The essays in this volume document and illuminate some of the momentous and ongoing changes to which this work contributes; the recognition of sexual harassment, rape, and battering as claims for sexual discrimination; the redefinition of rape in terms of women’s actual experience of sexual violation; and the reframing of the pornography debate around harm rather than morality. The perspectives in these essays have played an essential part in changing American law and remain fundamental to the project of building a sex-equal future.”

“When it was published twenty-five years ago, Catharine MacKinnon’s pathbreaking work Sexual Harassment of Working Women had a major impact on the development of sexual harassment law. The U.S. Supreme Court accepted her theory of sexual harassment in 1986. Here MacKinnon collaborates with eminent authorities to appraise what has been accomplished in the field and what still needs to be done.

An introductory essay by Reva Siegel considers how sexual harassment came to be regulated as sex discrimination. Contributors discuss how law can best address sexual harassment; the importance and definition of consent and unwelcomeness; issues of same-sex harassment; questions of institutional responsibility for sexual harassment in both employment and education settings; considerations of freedom of speech; effects of sexual harassment doctrine on gender and racial justice; and transnational approaches to the problem. An afterword by MacKinnon assesses the changes wrought by sexual harassment law in the past quarter century.”

About: This book, to be published in two volumes, is based on the contributions made to the W.G. Hart Workshop 2003. It contains more than forty contributions by leading experts seeking to assess the state of development of EU law some fifty years after the establishment of the Communities and contribute to the current debate on the European Constitution. The second volume focuses on challenges in the field of the internal market and external relations, looking at diverse areas of European Law, including free movement, competition law and merger control, public procurement, consumer law, enlargement, WTO, third country nationals, sex equality ets.

“Although European policy initiatives to advance the position of women in Academia (and especially in science) have proliferated, both at national and EU levels, serious inequities of many kinds remain. This situation is exposed and investigated in this outstanding book, which presents reports and discussions from a two-day conference held at the Law Faculty of Lund University in December 2004. The participants – law professors and social scientists – present detailed reports on domestic experiences and regulations in eight European countries: Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Among the many provocative issues raised and explored are the following:

• “positive action” in theory and practice

• the progress of the EU Commission’s strategy to integrate equal opportunity into all Community policies and activities

• the motives for promoting women in Academia

• the importance not only of setting targets but of funding to achieve them

• the extensive group of part-timers and fixed-term employees at the margin of the traditional academic career

• the importance of creating a situation in Academia where “woman excellence” shows

• the development of “marketable” research disciplines embodied in private research institutes

With its penetrating analysis of its subject– women in Academia in Europe– and its many keen insights into the possibilities within Community equality law to move forward quickly and effectively toward equity in academic positions for women and men, Women in Academia and Equality Law will be read avidly and put to use by committed lawyers, academics, and policymakers throughout the EU countries.”

About: Can affirmative action policies be convincingly justified? And how have they been legitimized over time? In a pluridisciplinary perspective at the intersection of political theory and the sociology of law, Daniel Sabbagh criticizes the two prevailing justifications put forward in favor of affirmative action: the corrective justice argument and the diversity argument.He defends the policy instead as an instrument designed to bring about the deracialization of American society. In this respect, however, affirmative action requires a measure of dissimulation in order to succeed.Equality and Transparency explains why this is so and provides a new interpretation of the strategic component in the Supreme Court’s case law while identifying some of its most remarkable side effects.

Justice, Gender and the Politics of Multiculturalism explores the tensions that arise when culturally diverse democratic states pursue both justice for religious and cultural minorities and justice for women. Sarah Song provides a distinctive argument about the circumstances under which egalitarian justice requires special accommodations for cultural minorities while emphasizing the value of gender equality as an important limit on cultural accommodation. Drawing on detailed case studies of gendered cultural conflicts, including conflicts over the ‘cultural defense’ in criminal law, aboriginal membership rules and polygamy, Song offers a fresh perspective on multicultural politics by examining the role of intercultural interactions in shaping such conflicts. In particular, she demonstrates the different ways that majority institutions have reinforced gender inequality in minority communities and, in light of this, argues in favour of resolving gendered cultural dilemmas through intercultural democratic dialogue.